Mohitha storms into snooker final

Mohitha beat Kanishka Junani of Madhya Pradesh 2 - 0 (32-28, 46-38) in the quarter final and later defeated Mariam Agnish of Tamil Nadu 2-1 (54-38), 26-52), 3829) in the semi-final. She will meet Kerthana Pandian of Karnataka in the final on Friday. Keerthana routed Ishika Shah of MP in the other semi-final. 

Mohitha, a ninth standard student of in Jeevana International School in Madurai, started playing snooker two years ago and was coached by Sendil of Madurai and Prem Prakash of Coimbatore. 

Debutant S Manasvini of Tamil Nadu shocked Chaahat Chikniwala of Gujarat by winning her first match in the National Junior Billiards Championship 57-34. 

Earlier in the National Sub-Junior Billiards Championship held concurrently, Manasvini playing her first match ever had lost to the same opponent in the morning. 

Top seed Anupama had a comfortable run with Sanvi Shah of MP winning her first match with a huge score of 177-36 in the 60-minute format. Earlier, she had lost 1-2 to Kanishka Jhurani of Madhya Pradesh in a major upset in the sub-junior quarterfinals. 

Anupama was not able to find her feet in the entire match and missing out on shots that she is good at. Kanishka, on the contrary, surprised with some excellent potting and followed it with a very pink and black pot in the black decider and the decider frame. 

In the boy’s junior snooker, S Shrikrishna of Tamil Nadu beat Sumher Mago 3-0. In a very scrappy first frame, qualifier Sumher Mago had an opportunity to pot pink and take the black. 

He landed up hitting the ball and missed potting leaving Shrikrishna to pot pink which was one ball. Shrikrishna finished the pink and black taking the first frame 62-45. 

Both the players resorted to strong safety play pushing all the reds below pink spot and leaving the cue ball near the top cushion. Shrikrishna got an opening and went out of position for black at 13. Mago had a plum position and missed black at 26. After a few more safety shots, Shrikrishna finished the frame at 59-27 taking a 2-0 lead. 

Shrikrishna played safety snooker behind brown and got a very good opening but fumbled at 21 going out of position. He followed it with another 21 and then came up with a break of 18 putting the score at 60-0 with five reds on the table. Mago not finding rhythm shook hands when the last red was potted by Shrikrishna at 68-25. Shrikrishna won 3-0. 

In the third and last match of junior snooker, Shrikrishna defeated Jitendra Soni 3-1. 

S Manasvini of Tamil Nadu beat her teammate Rajalakshmi 2-1 in junior billiards.